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11 September 2016

EasyEDA RGB5050 LED Scroll Bar

Guest Post Disclaimer

This is a guest post by the EasyEDA team. I would like to thank EasyEDA for providing this tutorial for everyone to enjoy.
All information within this post was provided by EasyEDA.

Description

None of us could deny the fact that we would love with to play with LED’s and lighting stuff.
I love to play with LED’s and create attractive lighting effects.
This project was a result of such an attempt where I created a stunning RGB light effect using the popular development platform Arduino Nano.
Let’s see the circuit, code and instruction on building this project:

Parts Required:

Arduino Libraries and IDE

No libraries are required for this project.
The Arduino IDE can be downloaded from the Arduino website.
Here is the download link.

ARDUINO CODE:

Preparing the LED strips

Cut down the LED strips into 10 single pieces.
Make sure you cut them into equal halves and make sure that only the copper conduction plate in the strip is cut.
Making a wrong cut disrupts the electrical conductivity between the LED’s.
After cutting down into separate strips, you will need to connect each strip using a Dupont wire connectors.

Control Board Circuit diagram

I used a free Online circuit and PCB designing platform called EasyEDA to develop my control board.
It is pretty easy to use especially because of the large library of parts to choose from. Once the design is complete, you have the option to order it through EasyEDA.
They offers great prices on custom PCB manufacturing.
I have added 10 connection points for 10 LED strips.
Each RGB LED strip is controlled by one of the Arduino Nano digital pins..
Transistors Q1,Q2,Q3….Q10 act as a switch for these LED strips for controlling 12V strips via a 5V signal from the Arduino.
And switches S1,S2..S4 were added to be able to select the effect on the strip.
The schematic can be seen below:

Schematic

You can access the actual EasyEDA schematic by clicking on the image below:

PCB Fabrication

You will then have access to the PCB order page which will allow you to download your PCB Gerber files that can be sent to any manufacturer.
However it is a lot easier (and cheaper) to order it directly from EasyEDA.
Here you can select:

the number of PCBs you want to order

the number of copper layers you need

the PCB thickness

copper weight

and even the PCB color

After you’ve selected all of the options, click “Save to Cart” and complete you order.
You will then get your PCBs shipped a few days later.

PCB final product

PCB Build of Materials

PCB connections

Connect the LED strips through the connection points in the board.
Make sure that you connect these correctly (push the connectors all the way onto the pin), because the chances of a short increase significantly with the number of wires connected.
Once all the connections are done all that left is to install your Arduino Nano (pre-programmed with the Arduino code above), and to power the PCB with a 12V power supply.